Abstract
From the end of the Cold War to nowadays, Russia has endeavored to reform itself so as to exit from a situation of crises. Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to give a new start to the economy of the Soviet Union, to reform its plethoric administration and take steps towards a more democratic, transparent political system; these reforms led to the disintegration of the country, the dismantling of Communism and the birth of the Russian Federation. Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the new state, put in place the basis of a market economy (with only partial success). Since 2000, his successor Vladimir Putin says he wants to renovate the institutions, regulate wild capitalism and integrate the national economy within world economic structures. Therefore, the History of contemporary Russia can a priori be perceived as a search for “normality” – a normalisation that notably implies some progress in terms of democracy.
